{"id":429576,"date":"2022-12-20T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-20T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/innovationorigins.com\/?p=429576"},"modified":"2022-12-20T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-12-20T15:00:00","slug":"humans-in-the-loop-provides-conflict-affected-people-with-digital-work-opportunities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/en\/humans-in-the-loop-provides-conflict-affected-people-with-digital-work-opportunities\/","title":{"rendered":"Humans in the Loop provides conflict-affected people with digital work opportunities"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In information technology, human-in-the-Loop<\/em> is a term used for models in which humans and artificial intelligence (AI) work together. Bulgarian start-up Humans in the Loop<\/a> is a social enterprise and involves in this work people who have fled from crisis zones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iva Guminshka, one of the winners of the 2022 EU Prize<\/a> for Women Innovators, is CEO, and founder of Humans in the Loop<\/a> (HTIL). The company specializes in data annotation for computer vision applications. HTIL operates in countries like Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Innovation Origins spoke with Guminshka about her company for this installment of the start-up of the day series<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does Humans in the Loop do?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe provide services to companies that develop artificial intelligence solutions. Lots of their data needs to be labeled manually. We do that with our human staff, which is why we say that we are keeping humans in the loop. It\u2019s about keeping people involved in AI in order to train, supervise, and monitor it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why is it needed?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen testing their technologies, AI or computer vision companies gather a lot of images or footage.  In order to train their robots – or algorithms – to recognize what\u2019s in those images, they must first check out what is actually in those pictures. They send all the material that needs labeling to us, and our workforce does this job for them so that robots can be taught to detect elements by themselves later on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s more, companies can also tap into our workforce in real time. Imagine a robot is out on the streets somewhere and, at some point, doesn\u2019t know what to do. It can reach out to our workforce, which can help distinguish between a vehicle and a person. We can offer both levels of engagement that companies need to test their technologies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"EU
Guminshka, second on the left, after receiving the prize – \u00a9 EIC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

How did you come up with the idea of involving refugees in AI?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt all started as a social project; I studied human rights at Columbia University, New York. After graduating, I returned to Bulgaria, where I wanted to carry out a project for refugees to support them. Then, the issue of labeling data for AI came up, and I thought it could be a perfect fit. There is a demand for it, and it\u2019s easy to do; anyone can do it. It doesn\u2019t require English or computer skills. It’s mostly about looking at images and saying what\u2019s on them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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How do you get people involved?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe operate in many different countries and have a local partner in each one of them. That\u2019s key because they have more local contacts than us, and it\u2019s easier to establish ourselves there. Then, we start the pilot in that country, which begins with a one-month-long training course to teach them the basics of data. At the end of this course, they\u2019re also eligible for English and computer training, as a way to upskill them. Usually, we give local organizations freedom to allocate the work how they see fit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/a>
<\/div><\/div>
Start-up of the day archive – Innovation Origins<\/div>
Spread all over Europe, thousands of start-ups have the most innovative ideas. Innovation Origins puts them in the spotlight every day.<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n

How do you manage this network of people and countries?  <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the main challenge that we are facing. We’ve scaled up to new countries, and it\u2019s hard to make choices and prioritize one country over others right now. It doesn’t feel good if we start the training course in a new country and then we don\u2019t have a project for them to work on. We want to keep supporting people already part of our network. At the same time, we don\u2019t want them to get stuck with us. It\u2019s a good opportunity for them to work remotely and with a high degree of flexibility – especially for students and housewives. Yet, we\u2019d like to encourage them to find other jobs, but some of them cannot find more attractive options.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides data labeling, are you considering expanding your focus to other applications too?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs we\u2019re currently in the process of raising our seed round, the goal is to expand our technical capabilities. The focus is on real-time monitoring of AI because we work a lot with high-risk systems that require 24\/7 oversight. When an AI system detects smoke, it sends an alert to one of our people, and it\u2019s up to them to verify if that\u2019s an actual fire. We\u2019re working to offer companies solutions to avoid these fake alerts; that\u2019s our next step.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In information technology, human-in-the-Loop is a term used for models in which humans and artificial intelligence (AI) work together. Bulgarian start-up Humans in the Loop is a social enterprise and involves in this work people who have fled from crisis zones. Iva Guminshka, one of the winners of the 2022 EU Prize for Women Innovators, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2084,"featured_media":515948,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"views\/single-startup.blade.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3009],"tags":[10373,69735,75211,75213,35348,3609],"location":[54101],"article_type":[6758],"serie":[],"archives":[],"internal_archives":[],"reboot-archive":[],"class_list":["post-429576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-startup","tag-ai","tag-ai-nl-3","tag-ethical-ai","tag-humans-in-the-loop","tag-start-up-of-the-day","tag-vluchtelingen","location-bulgaria","article_type-interview"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":{"subtitle":"Each day, we put a start-up in the spotlight. Today it\u2019s Humans in the Loop, which connects conflict-affected communities with digital work opportunities. ","text_display_homepage":false},"author_meta":{"display_name":"Mauro Mereu","author_link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/author\/mauro-mereu\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/Screenshot_152.png","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Start-ups<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Start-ups<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["AI<\/a>","AI<\/a>","ethical ai<\/a>","Humans in the Loop<\/a>","Start-up of the day<\/a>","vluchtelingen<\/a>"],"unlinked":["AI<\/span>","AI<\/span>","ethical ai<\/span>","Humans in the Loop<\/span>","Start-up of the day<\/span>","vluchtelingen<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 3 years ago","modified":"Updated 3 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on December 20, 2022","modified":"Updated on December 20, 2022"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on December 20, 2022 4:00 pm","modified":"Updated on December 20, 2022 4:00 pm"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2084"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429576"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=429576"},{"taxonomy":"article_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_type?post=429576"},{"taxonomy":"serie","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/serie?post=429576"},{"taxonomy":"archives","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/archives?post=429576"},{"taxonomy":"internal_archives","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/internal_archives?post=429576"},{"taxonomy":"reboot-archive","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/reboot-archive?post=429576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}